By DAVID WIEGAND, San Francisco Chronicle

"SHAMELESS: SEASON 1." (2011. Not rated. Warner Home Video. $39.98 DVD; $49.99 Blu-Ray)

2011 got off to a completely irreverent start with the debut of "Shameless" on the Showtime cable channel, and now the first gin-soaked season is available on DVD as a kind of refresher course for the season.

There's something old-fashioned about NBC's new John Grisham series "The Firm," but for once, that isn't a bad thing.

There are times when you can't help feeling "Masterpiece Classic" is scraping the bottom of the British literary barrel in search of material to film for TV audiences. Alas, the arrival of the three-part "South Riding," beginning at 9 p.m. EDT Sunday on PBS (and continuing May 8 and 15), is just one of those times.

"IDENTITY" (2010. NOT RATED. ACORN MEDIA. $39.99. TWO DISCS.)

Sometimes, just before watching the final episode of an otherwise great series, you wish you knew that it was going to end badly. That's almost the case with "Identity," but the plot and character mistakes in the finale shouldn't keep you from checking out the show.

A few minutes into the long-awaited "Upstairs Downstairs" sequel, launching Sunday on PBS' "Masterpiece," the new mistress of 165 Eaton Place walks into an employment agency for domestic staff.

HBO's new miniseries "Mildred Pierce," launching Sunday night, shares a title with the 1945 film that won Joan Crawford her only Oscar and is based on the same James M. Cain novel, but what director Todd Haynes has done with the material is something else entirely, and something not to be missed.

Here are a few "Mouseke-tidbits" that Bobby Burgess, Cubby O'Brien and Sharon Baird shared during their visit to the Walt Disney Family Museum last weekend:

-- Asked to sing a song during her audition for the show, Baird got the Mouseketeer part by singing "I Didn't Know the Gun Was Loaded."

SAN FRANCISCO - On Monday afternoon, Oct. 3, 1955, a generation of American kids raced home from school, plopped down on their living-room floors and waited for their black-and-white TV sets to warm up so they could watch a new show. It wasn't the first kids' show on TV, but they knew this one would be different.

"THE AGATHA CHRISTIE HOUR." (1982. NOT RATED. ACORN MEDIA. $39.99.)

The fact that so much vintage television is available on DVD these days means that there will be some dross among the gold. "The Agatha Christie Hour" isn't dross, but it does have limited charms, especially for anyone expecting the perfection Christie reached as one of the world's greatest mystery authors.

In a partially successful bid to create the biggest TV blockbuster of the summer, Starz cable network has adapted Ken Follett's 1,000-page, 1989 best seller "The Pillars of the Earth" as an eight-hour, blood-soaked miniseries, and proceeded to spend roughly the amount needed to undo the damage of the gulf oil spill trying to promote it.